


the shape of the shadows that detach from the walls

by wendlaa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Creative sex, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, M/M, Masturbation, Suicidal Ideation, attempted suicide, sort-of major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:02:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5110718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendlaa/pseuds/wendlaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stay with your host. No one in the Before can see you. Don't attach yourself to rabbits in the garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the shape of the shadows that detach from the walls

**Author's Note:**

> endless thanks to my lovely ashleigh kinklock and brit drfurter who worked with me to make this fic a reality.

 

His first host is a woman who he believes might have fancied herself his friend in the Before. She is the first one who he can grab with his hands. The others, the policemen on the scene, he had slipped right through like a stream of water. He is trapped in a seemingly never ending cycle of pain—his throat closing, his chest bursting, his stomach run through with needle after needle of searing agony. He chokes on vomit that he can’t get up. And even as he writhes and stutters out tight consonants of misery, no one is looking. No one can see him. When he reaches for the sleeves of the paramedics they cannot feel him.

But they touch the body that is no longer his and cover it with a sheet and haul it to the morgue. That’s where he touches Molly for the first time.

It is like rapture. He grasps Molly’s arm between his palms and drags himself howling out of the pain. His throat opens, his lungs suck in air like a man pulled from the brink of drowning. He grovels at her feet and presses his forehead against her thigh. She doesn’t even stir from her duties. He doesn’t feel it when she slices a line with a scalpel from sternum to belly button. His body is on the table but he is on the floor, quivering in a display of cowardice.

Sherlock’s arms do not cinch her calves together, nor does his face pressed to her thigh rustle her skirt. He clings to her but she moves seamlessly out of his arms and around the table. He is left on the floor, struggling to understand where and how and why.

When he uses the table to drag himself to his feet, he can see his own ribs and the muscle beneath his skin. Sherlock has watched men and women be split open down the middle, their insides poked and prodded at. Watching himself succumb to the same fate feels as if he’s trapped in a nightmare. He struggles to drag himself awake, but he’s trapped here. He lies open on the table, even as he stands beside it. Molly’s face is white and stony. When she blinks, her eyes are glossy with tears. She touches the face that is no longer his. She bows over his body on the table, pressing her forehead to his. Sherlock cannot feel it; he can only watch in a different sort of torture as she sobs over his body. He wants to rip her away, but when he reaches for her she doesn’t stir.

He shakes her and screams but she doesn’t move.

Sherlock learns quickly what the rules of the After are.

When Molly leaves the morgue, Sherlock tries to stay, to hover by the cold chambers holding his body. But the moment the sound of her shoes disappear down the hall, Sherlock feels the pain begin to return to his chest, his stomach, his throat. He struggles to breathe. His throat closes in jerking spasms; it feels as if his lungs have been riddled through with holes. The shock of the agony, skewered through every fiber of his being, is the only thing keeping him upright. He cannot open the morgue door, but he can pass through it. He moves like smoke through the air. Nothing exists to stop him.

He catches Molly at the end of the hall and throws himself against her, arms coiling tight around her shoulders. When he exhales, the pain recedes. From then on, he doesn’t leave her side.

But the After is boring.

Sherlock cannot make even a single page in an open book flutter, no matter how hard he tries. He can feel the paper beneath his fingertips, the wood flooring beneath his feet, but he’s useless in the tangible world.

What’s worse, he is stuck with the vicarious life experiences of his chosen host. Molly only lasts a few weeks.

He watches her write out his autopsy report, resting his crossed arms over the back of her chair. He struggles with the frustration as he watches her slowly, uncertainly, tap out the word suicide beside Method of Death. Sherlock exhales roughly against her ear and she raises one hand to tuck away a nonexistent loose strand of hair. Her fingers hover over the delete key.

Sherlock wills her with everything he has, but in the end she leaves the report as is.

His last hours of the Before are missing, like the last pages ripped from a novel. All he has is the fleeting memory of anguish, the struggle to breathe, the burning in his gut. “You don’t believe it was suicide,” Sherlock says into her ear. Molly hits print and stands from the chair.

“I don’t believe it was suicide,” he says instead, inserting himself into her vacated seat.

The cause of death is listed as poison. If the memory of pain is anything to go by, Sherlock heavily doubts that his chosen method of killing himself would have been poison. Certainly not one he didn’t mix himself. He stares at the screen, feeling his face pinch together in displeasure. Her fingers had faltered; she had hesitated, but why? Molly is clever, more clever than he had ever given her credit for in the Before. Perhaps even she knew he would never have swallowed poison to die.

“I was killed,” he says into the empty air.

Molly doesn’t hear him.

He follows her to work, to the grocery, to the park. He tests the limits of how far he can wander. In a fit of pique, he tries to attach himself to a park bench, but the rules of the After have him stuck with only living hosts.

Out of curiosity, he attaches himself to a rabbit in Molly's garden. When it darts under the fence, he's left in shaking, uncontrollable agony. Molly steps out to water the succulents and Sherlock clutches onto her like a lifeboat. He imagines she had sensed him, her constant companion, and had come to his rescue. But when she steps through him as if he is nothing but a sunbeam, he abandons all romanticised notions of his reality.

\--

Sherlock samples an array of hosts to try to combat the eternal boredom of being stuck in the After.

Three weeks after his death, Molly and Lestrade run into each other at the market. Sherlock is stuck watching the awkward exchange, the anxious smiles. His eyes roll to the back of his head, but at the very least it’s an excuse for a change of scenery. He reaches out to touch Lestrade’s arm and, thankfully, he makes contact. He holds onto him tightly, until Molly leaves. For a long moment, he waits with his breath held in preparation for his throat to choke all air from his lungs.

But there’s nothing. Sherlock breathes and stays with Lestrade.

Lestrade is only marginally more interesting a host than Molly. Following him to work is hit or miss when it comes to boredom. It mostly leads to frustration— he can see more things dead than Lestrade ever could alive. But in the After, he can’t tell Lestrade what to look for or who to pursue. He’s stuck, unable to solve even a single puzzle.

When there is a momentary lapse in petty theft and home invasions, Sherlock watches Lestrade pull out the case files of the suicides— his own added to the stack of manila folders stuffed full with police reports, sparse witness statements, crime scene photos, lab reports. The boxes of evidence have sat in storage since the first suicide had been found.

Lestrade stays late in his office, long after the the rest of New Scotland Yard and his team have gone home. Sally hovers in the doorway, fingertips rapping anxiously against the door handle. It occurs to Sherlock that he had never seen her looking so soft; his recent memories of her were all scathing, her expression hardened and twisted up. A flash of guilt blossoms in his chest, but he stamps it away when she turns and leaves. He almost follows, but the details of his death lain open on Lestrade’s desk keeps him.

Lestrade flips through the file. Sherlock bows over the desk beside him; the lamp light sinks through him and he leaves no shadow.

His body had been found by a young woman on a cleaning crew on the early morning of the 31st of January. She had called the paramedics to the college of further education, uncertain if he had even been alive. He wasn’t, of course. He’d been dead since the night of the 30th.

The hours had passed by like moments, at the beginning. Sherlock’s body gives a full shudder, remembering the echoes of agony he had suffered. Had his body really laid there the whole night, while his— essence— his echo— his soul, wallowed in the misery of the darkness? He remembers the rush of relief, thick and sticky like pleasure, when his hand had grasped onto Molly’s sleeve and he dragged himself free of that hellish tar— the same that now hovered at the edges of his consciousness, waiting for him to slip just too far from the living.

“I don’t believe in a soul,” Sherlock says aloud, to no one. Lestrade certainly isn’t listening. “And I don’t believe I killed myself, either. Neither do you.” But Lestrade only covers his face with his hands, grinding the heel of his palms against his eye sockets. Sherlock sighs in frustration, slapping his hand against the open fill. He can feel the paper and the hard wood of the desk beneath that— but he makes no sound, no echo.

“Why was I there!” Sherlock shouts, mouth at Lestrade’s ear. “Come on, I know you know better!”

In the end, Lestrade offers no new information and neither do Sherlock’s attempts at scouring his case file. Nothing triggers his memories of that day, and he is still left with gaps and holes in his memory surrounding the circumstances of his death.

If that surmounting frustration were not enough, Sherlock can not handle that and stomach Lestrade’s home life. Sherlock is caught in a constant, unending loop of secondhand embarassment. He is certain that this must be Hell and that he's earned the eternal punishment of being forced to hover outside the bedroom while Lestrade's wife makes vocal her disappointment with his performance in bed. Sherlock wishes he could lead Lestrade by the hand to all of the signs that point to his wife being unfaithful. If only to put an end to his own misery.

After Lestrade, Sherlock stays away from people he knew in the Before. It seems easier that way.  
  
As a silent, unseen voyeur, Sherlock samples other people's lives. Some are more interesting than others. Each one, however, has a secret— not all of them are bearable for Sherlock to witness. An accountant for a staffing firm who embezzles thousands of pounds every quarter is, while dull, easier to stomach than a housewife who hides broken shaving razors under the sink and cuts under her skirts.

Sherlock finds himself the bearer of other people's secrets. He is the only ear that's listening when they pray at night.

Sometimes, for a reason he can't quite pin down, he responds to them in words they can't hear.

\--

In the spring following his death, Sherlock experiences the peculiar and singular feeling of being watched from across a crowded park.

Slowly, Sherlock lifts his eyes from the page of his host's book lying open in her lap. He can feel the prickling along his skin, the eerie sense of being looked at directly. It’s a feeling that is, of course, much more interesting now that he's dead.

The first warm day of spring has coaxed out even Sherlock's most recent misanthropic host. People are milling through the park in. Loud shrieks of laughter from the children running through the grass, free after a winter cooped up inside, echo through the open and sparse trees. Sherlock imagines, if he could still taste or smell, that the air might be filled with the warm scents of spring: freshly cut grass, flowers blooming, spring rain. Ugh, it's all hateful.

Sherlock allows his gaze to rove over the nameless faces, trying to gauge if any one of them had been the perpetrator behind the prickly feeling of being watched.

When he doesn't find a culprit, Sherlock slowly returns his attention to the open book in his host's lap, chalking it up to an off-center stare that hadn't really been meant for him at all. The unnerved feeling lingers, like a cool breeze along curls at the nape of his neck. He hasn't been seen in so long; in the Before, he had no trouble gathering someone’s stare.

A rhythmic clicking of metal against pavement draws his attention at the same time as his host snaps closed her book. A man, dressed down in a cardigan and button up, hobbles towards them, leaning heavily on his cane. As he approaches, Sherlock feels a sinking chill in the pit of his stomach as the man's eyes meet his— deliberate, not a lost gaze or a sweep of his surroundings. In the Before, Sherlock had met strangers eyes in this exact manner. Sherlock can feel the look the man had given him, a tangible thing, even after he has limped passed.

Sherlock stands and moves and each step away from his host is like struggling against a current. The man limps at a steady pace, confident, and Sherlock feels the tell tale tickle in his throat, the seeping edges of asphyxiation. Each step takes him further away from the solace of safety; but he’s done this enough times to know— all he has to do is reach him, is touch him— and the man can see him—

Sherlock, in a fit of delirium, of joy, of dizzy excitement, clasps onto the man's arm and practically shouts, "You can see me!" as he swings himself in front of the man's body, burning with delight, brimming with the feeling of hope— who cares who he is, if he's dull, he can see him—!

The man limps right through him, as though he were nothing but air or smoke, and something like ice runs down his spine.

Every feeling of joy seeps out of him like blood from a wound. He's left staring back the way he had come, watching his host stand from the bench and start to walk back home. The choice is easy. He turns on his heels and follows the man with the limp, holding onto him until the threat of pain has long passed, and even after that.

\--

John Watson.

Sherlock stands in the corner of the therapist's office by the curtains, matching his breathing with John's. If he concentrates he can make the thin fabric flutter softly. Or perhaps it's just a draft.

"Have you been writing in your blog?"

John scoffs softly somewhere behind him. Sherlock changes his breathing to copy the uncomfortable, slow breaths John now takes. "Absolutely," John says, even though Sherlock had watched him stare in dismay at a blank blog post, managing only to tap out a few words before deleting the whole thing.

His new host is an invalided soldier. John jerks awake during the night, haunted by some dead civilian or other. He shakes in the morning trying to spread butter on his toast. He receives no calls during the day and calls no one himself— but he has a fair number of texts he ignores from Harry Watson.

John walks with a limp and leans heavily on his cane, but Sherlock witnesses, in the quiet in between, the way John sometimes forgets that it's there at all. He won't even take an offered seat on the tube, preferring instead to stand with one hand gripped tightly to the rail. Though his knuckles turn white, his leg never betrays him. John spends his days in a small flat that his army pension barely pays for. He goes to therapy, to the grocery, to the pub.

Never mind the obvious psychosomatic limp, Sherlock would have been in tears of boredom if it hadn't been for that one, minute detail about John Watson that far surpassed any other aspect of an interesting host: John Watson can see him.

At least, he had seen him in the park. So far, Sherlock has been unable to recreate that singular moment of brief eye contact.

"You don't even have to publish it," Ella is saying calmly, her voice soothing. "You just have to write it. What you're thinking, what you're feeling. Everything that happens to you now that you're home."

John scoffs again and Sherlock turns to watch him. He shifts his weight uncomfortably in the chair. “Nothing happens to me,” he says quietly. Sherlock wants to shake him. The most important thing that’s ever happened to him took place one week ago that very day, and yet he had moved on by without so much as a second glance. Nothing Sherlock has done has been able to draw John’s attention. Perhaps it really had been a mistake— was John glancing surreptitiously at someone who had stood behind Sherlock on the bench?

But he can’t let himself believe that.

The feeling of John’s eye contact had been too sharp and real. Sherlock rubs his palm along his throat, remembering the way his heart had leaped into his esophagus. It has been singularly different feeling than the pain of the asphyxiation.

“Have you been in contact with your sister since you’ve been home?”

The conversation is moving on and Sherlock is dying there in the corner of the room, deader than dead. John fidgets his way through the last half hour, uncomfortable and distrustful. They leave together. Sherlock imagines they’re leaving together. He says, “She’s clever but she’s wrong about you.” John tugs the collar of his jacket up against the spring rain.

As they walk by a storefront, John turns his head slightly to look. Sherlock looks as well— and there they are together in the reflection, Sherlock hovering close behind, nearly brushing his elbow against John’s. Sherlock feels his whole body clench with longing; John’s expression grows tight and closed off as he twists his head around over his shoulder, mouth open and consonants already forming before the sounds grind to a surprised halt.

When John stops abruptly, Sherlock passes right through him. The realisation hits him square in the chest and his whole body tingles with a warmth he thought he would never feel again.

John had seen him in the store window’s reflection.

\--

The bed is small, but John sleeps with his back pressed against the wall, facing out towards the rest of the room. Sherlock watches him sleep, dipping into REM and back out again. John doesn't sleep calmly.

Sherlock watches and wonders if the ten minutes of staring at the ceiling before finally dropping off are John's bedtime prayers. He wonders if John thinks anyone is listening; he wonders if John knows someone might be.

Slowly, Sherlock unfolds himself from the floor and pads to the bed. He sinks down to sit on the edge. John has cycled back towards a lighter phase of sleep. He twitches and twists slightly, blankets tangled around his bare calves. With care, Sherlock lowers himself to lay side by side with John in the bed. He turns his back to the room, facing inward. He stretches one arm over his head, resting his temple on the inside of his elbow. His other hand rests gently on the sheets between their bodies.

John breathes slow and steady.

Sherlock lays there, unmoving, while John's body goes through another cycle of sleep. What could be hours feels like only minutes; Sherlock counts each breath in and each breath out until he feels like he could breach the rules of the After and fall asleep, too.

Sherlock holds his breath as John's eyes flutter slowly open. In the dim light from the street lamp outside the window, his irises are pale and bleary. John's gaze is unfocused for a moment before slowly fixing onto Sherlock.

There is a tense moment of waiting— Sherlock, for John's eyes to focus on the wall behind him; John, for his own head to clear the remnants of sleep. But John keeps looking right at him. Sherlock's chest tightens as John's eyes flicker over his face, taking in the shape and outline of him in the darkness. This is so much more than those brief flashes from before; John is really seeing him, taking him in, hovering on the cusp of sleep. Sherlock swallows quietly, twisting his fingers into the sheets; they don't wrinkle at all, reminding him of his reality.

"You can see me," Sherlock chances to whisper.

John's eyes focus on Sherlock's. It sends a sharp rush of heat down his spine in and into his stomach.

"Of course I can see you," John murmurs back.

Sherlock swallows back a lump forming in his throat. He watches in awe as John's hand reaches slowly across the valley of the bed between them. His fingers glide through Sherlock's shoulder. It isn't a touch, but Sherlock's stomach feels as if it's swooping all the same.

John's hand lowers back to the bed, his palm resting right inside the center of Sherlock's chest..

John has already sunk back off to sleep and Sherlock lays like that, still and yearning, with John inside.

\--

"I know you can see me!" Sherlock shouts, standing in the middle of John's pathetic flat. John is rubbing his palms over his face, sat at the small breakfast bar with a stack of printed resumes in a manila folder.

John sighs softly in the face of Sherlock’s agitation.

"I know you can! You looked right at me, you saw me in the shops, and in bed—!" Sherlock slams his hands down on the breakfast bar on either side of John's resumes. "So why won't you look!"

Another sigh, filled with exhaustion. Sherlock gets an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach; as if time is somehow slowly running out.

"Please—" Sherlock's voice catches on the word as? he slides his elbows down onto the table. He leans close to John's face, wants to take it between his palms but doesn't. "Please, please—" He swallows thickly. "Please just look at me."

With care, John tucks the resumes slowly back into the folder, edges straight and aligned. Then, John stands from the small breakfast bar, crossing the cramped space of the room to the second-hand desk pressed against the foot of the bed. His limp is barely there, just an afterthought. The tremor in his hand is no longer present; Sherlock watches those steady hands tap against the top of the desk, then reach with confidence towards the drawer.

Sherlock crosses the space between them, following John's line of sight down to the gun stacked on top of hospital release papers and army documents. A cold choking feeling begins to pull at the edges of Sherlock's throat and he reaches to grasp John's hand. He squeezes tightly, but is unable to control the way John reaches down to grasp the handle of the gun.

The blood that isn't really pumping through Sherlock's veins runs cold. The heart that isn't really beating races and becomes lodged in Sherlock's throat.

"Stop," Sherlock wheezes, his voice sounding small to his own ears. "Stop."

John twists the gun around in his grip. Sherlock clutches and yanks at it with a feeling of growing desperation. John's entire being is steady; Sherlock can barely see a light of warmth in his eyes, but his hands never once falter. He moves, slowly, right through Sherlock to sit on the edge of the bed.

John's cane lays forgotten, propped up against the breakfast bar.

Sherlock has never felt more self-aware. Sherlock tells himself that the sudden clench of panic in his chest isn't for John's well being— after all, he's just another host with all the same aches and agonies as all the others —but because John had seen him, had looked right into his eyes. Sherlock feels that connection, that recognition, already slipping away from him. He throws himself to his knees at John's feet and grasps him by the face, framing his jaw between his palms.

Sherlock can feel John's skin against his own, the reality of his tangible existence. His jaw is rough from stubble. Sherlock hunkers down, putting himself in John's line of sight; John is looking right through him, stroking his thumb along the metal of the gun.

John's hand lifts, slowly, and Sherlock feels the bubbling panic come to a head, twisting up his insides until it all comes spilling out— his whole existence flickers in and out like a old light bulb. "STOP!" His voice is deafening even to his own ears as he leans up to press his forehead against John’s, hands still clutching his face.

John stops.

\--

Sherlock watches John painstakingly tap out each letter one by one into the search bar: auditory hallucinations.

He rolls his eyes and leans heavily on the back of John's chair. No matter how much of his weight he puts down, it doesn't tip back. "You're not having hallucinations," Sherlock says. Conveniently, John doesn't hear him.

Without an official Welcome to the After handbook, Sherlock has to discover the rules himself— often through painful trial and error. No one can see him. No one can hear or feel him. His hauntings go unnoticed to the living world and the physical objects that inhabit it.

But John Watson has singlehandedly changed those rules. Sherlock remembers the weight of his gaze and his stomach flips. John had spoken to him, giving Sherlock concrete evidence that he is still existent, somewhat, to the Before. That means that John, somehow, in his own way, is part of the After.

Sherlock ponders this while he follows John to therapy, where he does not talk about his suicidal ideation or his auditory hallucination. The only viable conclusion is that John had died— or almost died. He had been, maybe for a brief moment, part of the After. John had heard him that night with the gun in his hand-- perhaps had even felt him, too. For a momentary window there had been nothing between the Before and the After-- nothing between John and Sherlock-- and Sherlock's voice had broken through.

In the park, in the shop windows reflection, in the bed— John had been straddling the space between the Before and the After. Or perhaps he had been caught off guard and Sherlock had simply slipped right through.

"You just wrote 'still has trust issues'," John says, a little louder than the back and forth between them that Sherlock had been drowning out. Sherlock turns away from the window, watching.

"And you read my writing upside down," Ella says calmly, her lips turning into a wry smile. "See what I mean?"

Sherlock scoffs and his heartbeat skips in his throat when John twists his head just slightly towards the sound. Sherlock straightens, stepping slowly into John's line of sight. "You heard me."

John is turning his gaze away purposefully, looking straight at Ella. Sherlock watches his jaw clench and tic.

"You see me!" He says, moving to stand between John and Ella. John is looking right through him, but Sherlock can see the way his eyes now focus. Sherlock struggles for air; is it the asphyxiation, the pain in his stomach, the crawling of poison up his lungs? Is it Hell, back to take him, to drag him away? Is this what happens when someone trapped in the After finally grabs the attention of someone still in the Before? He can’t breathe; his sight narrows into a pinhole. “You see me,” he repeats, the words squeezed out between the tightness of his throat.

John’s expression has grown taut and closed off. Sherlock can see his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Slowly, John’s eyes lift and they meet Sherlock’s— and there it is, John is looking right at him. All the breath sweeps from his lungs, but this time what replaces it feels as if Sherlock has swallowed sunlight.

Sherlock steps out of the way, hovering back by the window. The sunlight streams through his body and leaves a square pattern on the ornate rug.

“You can see me,” he whispers.

\--

Sherlock gives John space, walking a few metres behind him on the way home. It doesn't matter; Sherlock feels as if he's floating, walking on clouds. John's shoulders are hunched and his limp is worse than ever, but Sherlock can't bring himself to feel bad about that. John can see him! And hear him! All the time! But for how long? How long has John been very carefully pretending to ignore his existence, under the guise that he was nothing but a hallucination?

John purposefully slams the door to his tiny flat, but Sherlock slips right through.

"You're not hallucinating," Sherlock says immediately. John, back turned, let's his shoulders slump. He rubs one hand over his face and through his hair. Slowly, he turns and he looks at Sherlock in a way that Sherlock imagines that he will never get used to. After so long of being absolutely nothing, he is suddenly tangible again. It sends his heart racing beneath his ribs.

John's face looks tired. The bags under his eyes are deep. Sherlock has never seen such a delightful sight.

"How long?" Sherlock asks, gliding silently through the room. "How long have you been pretending you can't see me?"

John's lips twist together and he lowers himself to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning heavily on his cane. He exhales, and Sherlock can practically feel his hesitance in responding, palpable in the room. "A while," John finally croaks out.

Warmth climbs out of Sherlock's chest and uncoils down his arms and legs and into his fingertips.

"But you thought you were hallucinating," Sherlock says. "So you ignored me."

John nods firmly, clearing his throat. "I heard you more often," he says quietly.

"Auditory hallucinations aren't uncommon with people who have PTSD," Sherlock muses. He stands in the center of John's flat, arms crossed. Having a conversation. Even if it turns out that John were the most dull person on the planet, Sherlock isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "You don't have PTSD."

John scoffs. He sets his cane between his knees, leaning forward on the handle. "No?"

The warmth keeps spreading; Sherlock feels as if he's radiating heat. "No." He answers confidently. "You have a tremor in your left hand."

"That should prove your theory wrong, not right," John says. Sherlock is never going to get used to being spoken to directly. He wants to weep with joy, but his tears have long dried out. He can only grin at John instead to convey the depth of his feeling. John only stares blankly back at him. It doesn't matter; he's looking.

"Your hands were steady that night with the gun. They're steady now." Sherlock watches John glance down at his hands. His left hand lifts slightly, fingers curling and clenching into a fist that John presses back against his thigh.

John tucks his chin against his throat, looking down into his lap. Sherlock swallows, letting the silence grow thick and heavy around them. It feels like a millennia before John looks up again, expression blank and hands steady. "So what are you?" John asks.

In all his determination and excitement to be seen, Sherlock finds that he hadn't prepared himself to answer this question. He hesitates and flounders a bit, mouth opening and closing around a few starts and stops of words that end up getting tangled in his throat. His head tips from side to side, hands lifting and opening.

"I don't know," he finally answers, dropping his hands. "All I know are the rules."

"So what are the rules?" John asks in a way that is challenging but not quite confrontational.

"Stay with your host," Sherlock says, holding up one finger with each point. "No one in the Before can see you. Don't attach yourself to rabbits in the garden."

John laughs and Sherlock feels a warm rush of surprise climb up his spine. He wavers on his feet, feeling like he might sink right through the floor in pleasure. When he regains himself, John is looking at him with an expression that has fallen a bit more open, soft and warm. His left hand never wavers.

"Fine," John says as he slowly lifts himself from the bed. He barely uses his cane. "I'll put on tea and you can tell me everything. I don't suppose you want any." It's a joke, and Sherlock can't stop the bubble of laughter.

"Oh, no," Sherlock says, feeling high and delirious. "It'll go right through me."

\--

Sherlock doesn't think John altogether believes him about not being a hallucination. So, Sherlock takes John to his grave.

It's tucked into the back of the cemetery, beneath a tree with long branches that reach out over the black marble headstone. Sherlock hasn't been to his own grave since Molly came for a short visit when he'd first entered the After. She hadn't come to his funeral; Sherlock doesn't even know if he'd had one. Perhaps his brother had just had him quietly buried beneath the old oak tree without any other fuss.

The cemetery is empty and the late morning light filters through the leaves of the trees, creating speckled patterns along the grass. John leans heavily on his cane, stiff and tired. Sherlock hovers close by, breathing more easily that he ever has since joining the After.

John looks down at his grave and Sherlock watches. His name is etched in gold into the dark face of the head stone. There are no dates to mark his birth and death.

John presses the end of his cane against the dirt. "Sherlock Holmes." John forming the sound of his name almost makes Sherlock believe in absolution and heaven. "Is this really you?"

Sherlock nods, meeting John's eyes when he looks over his shoulder. "Yes," he says. "In the Before."

"And this, right now-" John gestures between them. "This is the After?"

Sherlock shrugs, feeling a bubbling moment of self doubt. "I had to call it something."

John looks back towards his grave and Sherlock steps up alongside him. They stand together like that, Sherlock's arm brushing against John's. If he stays very still, he can feel the heat radiating from John's body.

"How'd it happen?" John asks, his voice tight in his throat. Sherlock matches their breathing together— five seconds in, six seconds out. "How'd you die?"

Sherlock crumples his brow, fingers twisting together. He looks sidelong at John from under his fringe. John, who had been shot but not in his leg; John, who had almost died in the hot desert, feigning patriotism to a war he didn't even believe in. John, who had stepped into the slot between the Before and the After and fit perfectly.

"I don't remember," Sherlock says, sucking in a breath and dragging his eyes away from John's quiet profile. "My autopsy report says suicide."

"Was it?" John's voice sounds vaguely hollow. Sherlock remembers the gun and his whole body flinches; it feels as if he's flickering in and out of existence.

Sherlock stays silent, hovering just behind John's shoulder. Seeing his own grave is a surreal experience. He had known, logically, what it meant to be part of the After. He had watched his own autopsy, read his own cause of death, seen Molly mourn. And now here John stands, on top of his grave, and Sherlock finds himself struggling to reconcile the sight with his own reality.

John suddenly shivers, shaking his head and shoulders to rid himself of the goose pimples. "Jesus," he says, looking over his shoulder. "Is that you?"

"What?" Sherlock looks up sharply, gaze narrowing onto John; nothing else exists but John.

"It's like you sucked all the warmth out of the air," John says, pulling the sleeve of his jacket up to expose his forearm; hair stands upright from prickled skin.

Sherlock is overcome and he laughs, reaching out to lay his palm against John's skin. He can feel John's warmth and the brush of his arm hair beneath his fingertips. When he glides his hand up, he can feel the fabric of his jacket sleeve. John is watching him in a way that seems cautious.

"Can you feel me?" Sherlock asks softly. His voice quivers with too much hope. It's disgusting.

John shakes his head. "No," he replies, his voice displaying something like regret. Sherlock swallows and removes his hand.

They walk in silence back up the path to the cemetery gates. Sherlock is burning to ask: Am I still a hallucination to you? Do you believe that's really my grave? Can I stay with you?

He says none of it.

\--

John types his name into a search engine. Sherlock watches, arms crossed over the back of his chair.

The first three results are from internet news sites. Another Dead In Serial Suicides. Amateur Detective Found Dead. Sherlock Holmes: NSY Consultant Takes His Own Life.

The fourth result down is the link to his own blog. Sherlock feels a burning rush of embarrassment that he can’t seem to shake as John clicks it. The black and blue website with the brazened title The Science of Deduction stares back at them. John clicks on a few blog entries, scanning the first few lines of each. He chuckles a little and Sherlock wrinkles his nose.

“What’s funny?” he asks, sliding around to the side and sitting on the edge of the desk.

“That you’re real— allegedly,” John says, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. “A consulting detective? Isn’t that really what all detectives are for, anyway? Consulting?”

“I invented that title!” Sherlock snaps. John grins at him boyishly; the haunted look is gone from his eyes and his expression is warm. Sherlock can feel the embarrassed irritation slipping away as quickly as it had come.

“Did you kill yourself?” John asks, plainly. Sherlock adores him for it.

“I don’t remember,” he answers, the same as he had at the cemetery. He takes a deep breath before expanding, laying his hands palm up on his thighs. “I only remember that it hurt. I watched the mortician perform my autopsy. I watched her type up the report. Suicide by poison. I would never have done, but I must have.”

“You don’t believe you must have,” John points out. “Why else would you still be here?”

Sherlock scoffs out a laugh. “Do you believe in an afterlife? In God?” Sherlock sneers. “Do you think I’m here still because my soul has some unfulfilled quest, to find out how I died? Am I nothing but kinetic energy attaching myself to the physical realm?”

John’s expression is deceptively smooth. Sherlock swallows and looks away, down to his lap. “Well,” Sherlock says quietly. “I don’t know about all that. There is no after to the After.” There is just pain and darkness.

“I don’t know why I’m still here.” Sherlock looks up slowly, feeling John’s gaze on him like a heavy weight that is keeping him attached to the earth.

John's expression finally falters, and Sherlock can see the hint of pain. He crosses his arms and leans back in the chair at the desk, nodding towards the screen of the lap top. "You don't believe this junk," John says. The screen is open to a news story about Sherlock's death and the puzzled inquiries of the public.

Sherlock feels the vice on his throat loosen, and he puffs out a small laugh. "No," he agrees, rubbing one hand through his hair. "No, you're right, I don't. The frustration during my first few weeks in the After was unbearable. I had died and no one bothered to find out why."

"How am I supposed to know you're real?" John asks, sounding as if he doesn’t care one wit either way. "Even now?"

"Then you're chatting to sentient air," Sherlock says. "And even still it's the most exciting thing that's happened to you in months."

John's lips twitch and he laughs— a big, deep laugh that contorts his face and exposes all the lines in his skin. It's a handsome look and Sherlock yearns to touch every dip.

\--

The air is thick and cold with rain when John steps out of the building on his way to therapy later that afternoon. He pulls his coat collar up against the rain. Each water droplet slides through him, and he tilts his face towards the sky in something like yearning.

Sherlock feels his stomach turn to rot at the sight of a sleek black car pulling up to the curb. The woman whose name is not Anthea steps out, all soft brunette hair and tight pencil skirt. John is stricken; he looks at her without reservation and in a way that makes Sherlock feel all the more sick.

"Doctor Watson?" Anthea says with a smile that's sweet poison.

John blinks and his tongue darts across his bottom lip. In the presence of another person, Sherlock turns invisible to John. He's trapped in the agony of being known but dutifully ignored. "Who's asking?" John replies, his voice curt.

"Mr. Holmes," Anthea answers. And then, with a little more force: "He would like a word. Can we drive you to therapy, Doctor?"

Sherlock is impressed with the way John does not spare him a glance; he wishes he would all the same.

"I don't think I know a Mr. Holmes," John says calmly.

Anthea only smiles and holds the door to the car open. Sherlock steps close and exhales against John's ear. "Just get in," he advises. John has no outward reaction of hearing him; but, to both Sherlock's relief and dismay, John gets into the car. Anthea closes the door and walks around to the opposite side, while Sherlock simply passes through.

The back of the vehicle has two rows of seats facing each other. There's not enough space between them, and Sherlock feels his breath cut short when he finds himself pressed into the tight space right across from his brother.

Mycroft is peering down at an open folder in his lap. Sherlock had never considered the possibility of seeing his brother again; in fact, it was something that he had hoped to avoid at all costs.

John, ever the steady soldier, sits square shouldered and firm. Sherlock watches his hand clench against his thigh. He moves, soundless and invisible, until he pressed along John's side, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. Anthea settles into the seat beside Mycroft and the car pulls from the curb, gliding smoothly into the traffic.

"Doctor Watson," Mycroft says and Sherlock squirms uncomfortably at the sound of his voice. It's unfamiliar to him; deep and catching in the back of his throat.

"Mr. Holmes, apparently," John says, a little snidely. Sherlock almost wishes he wouldn't; he can't put his finger on why. "Do I know you?"

"No," Mycroft replies, looking up from the file. "But you know my brother."

John raises his brows. "Sorry?"

"You visited my brother's grave on… Wednesday? No one's visited his grave in some months." The way Mycroft talks makes Sherlock wish he weren't trapped in this small car. His brother's face, when he really looks, is taut and pale. There’s exhaustion written all over it. His fingers rap restlessly against the armrest between him and Anthea. Sherlock looks away, towards anything at all.

"Ah," John says, stalling.

"Say we were friends," Sherlock suggests mildly. John's lips twitch just slightly.

"We were friends," John replies.

"No," Mycroft says slowly, flipping through the papers inside the folder. "Aside from the fact that you were invalided home from Afghanistan only a few weeks before his death, my brother does not—" Sherlock feels his whole body shiver and the air in the car turns icy. Mycroft presses a button on the center console and the sound of the heater kicking on fills the space between them. And then, as if he had not paused at all, Mycroft says, "My brother did not keep friends."

"I'd say we were pretty close," John says dismissively. Sherlock aches somewhere in his chest.

Sherlock watches as his brother turns his gaze slowly from the file in his lap. Sherlock has known that steely gaze well in his life; it had never been as cold as it is now. John is looking right back, unafraid. The tremble in his hand is still.

“Dr. Watson—” Mycroft begins, but before he can get his well-articulated threat out, John is interrupting him. Sherlock can physically feel himself pumping cold air into the space around them, like a draft through a broken window.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” John says, speaking over Mycroft. His voice sounds genuine and kind. "But I don't know anything about your brother."

"Do you assume there's information to relay?" Mycroft asks, one brow slowly raising. Even his smug look seems dampened. Despite all the fanfare, there's very little about his brother that seems intimidating. Sherlock avoids looking at the darkness beneath Mycroft's eyes. He watches Anthea studiously pretend to be interested in her blackberry.

"There must be, or why else am I here?" John asks, opening his palms in a display of peace. "But I don't know."

Mycroft closes the folder and hands it to Anthea. She takes it into her lap without looking up.

Sherlock feels the car slow to a stop and he's never been more grateful. He slides through John, across the seat, pressing himself against the wall of the car. Mycroft is speaking, but Sherlock only catches half: "If you ever do come across information about Sherlock Holmes—"

But Sherlock is through the car and out onto the sidewalk. He tries not to imagine the car peeling off again with John and leaving him without a host. A moment later, John is stepping out of the car. Sherlock turns to look and he catches a glance of his brother's face— the guarded look is gone and what is left leaves Sherlock in physical pain. For a brief moment, it seems as if Mycroft’s eyes meet his own before sliding away, right through him.

John gives him only a passing glance as he moves through him and down the sidewalk.

It isn't until they're sitting in Ella's office when Sherlock comes out of himself and realises that John has left behind his cane.

\--

Sherlock imagines that John sleeps better now that he’s here.

It’s nothing he can certifiably state as fact, but Sherlock watches him each night dip off into sleep; he’s there, too, when John stirs awake in the early morning, the sky still damp and grey as the sun inches toward the horizon.

“My mother used to call this the grey hour,” Sherlock says, watching the morning spread over the sky from the window. John makes a noncommittal noise from the kitchen, clinking his spoon against the inside of his mug as he stirs milk into his tea.

“She’s very clever, my mother,” Sherlock says into the empty air. He doesn’t think John is listening. It doesn’t matter. He can’t make himself stop talking. “Perhaps a touch superstitious. She would say the grey hour never sat well with her. Made her ill in the gut.”

“Do you miss her?” John asks.

Sherlock looks over his shoulder. The light coming in spears right through him and onto the floor. He wonders what he must look like to John: visible but untouchable. John is watching him intently, his eyes softer than Sherlock has ever seen them. Sherlock catches a stone in his throat and doesn’t reply.

“You look unreal like that,” John says, anyway, moving on.

“Like what?” Sherlock turns all the way now, facing John, standing in the centre of the dim light. John sucks in a deep breath, coming around the corner of the cramped breakfast bar. It’s still surreal to watch another person approach him with such single-minded intent.

“With the light coming right through you.” John stops just in front of him, reaching one hand out. He lays it just above Sherlock’s chest, hovering but not quite touching. Sherlock looks down the line of his body, see’s John’s fingers spreading as if aiming to cover where his heart had once beat. His palm presses as close as possible, until it almost looks, even to Sherlock, that John is touching him.

Sherlock covers John’s hand with his own; real, tangible, flesh and bone. Sherlock closes his eyes against the sight, twisting his head away.

Later, after the grey hour has passed, John says, “I was shot in the shoulder.”

Sherlock lays flat on the floor and John steps right through him. “That means the limp is psychosomatic.”

John, who has not limped since forgetting his cane, shoots him a dirty look. Sherlock feels a warm fondness in his belly.

“Imagined pain is still pain," John says. Sherlock’s stomach clenches and he swallows around an imagined vice in his throat.

At night, they lie side by side. John is unbothered by Sherlock lying in his bed. His breathing is slow and calm. In the faint light from the street lamps, John looks younger than he is. The marks of age seem smoothed out, the bags under his eyes less heavy. Sherlock's heart constricts around each phantom beat.

John looks at him and through him. Sherlock feels small underneath his gaze. Sherlock reaches out and touches him; he lays his palm flat against John's chest. It feels unearthly intimate. Sherlock has never been so close to another human being.

"Can you feel that?" Sherlock asks when John closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath. It expands his diaphragm and presses the solid mass of John's chest against his palm.

"No," John says with a voice steeped in regret. John's eyes open then and his chin tilts down. His eyes follow the length of Sherlock's arm until again he is looking him directly in the eye.

Sherlock slides closer on the bed, closing the distance between them until he is practically slotted against John's body. Their eyes are level, John's breath ghosting warm and soft across Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock keeps his palm pressed to John's body. He slides it up, feeling John's muscles and the soft layer of descriptive fat that's covered them since being invalided.

Sherlock presses his thumb against the gnarled knot of flesh beneath the threadbare tee shirt, just on John's shoulder. For a brief flash of a moment, Sherlock can feel the sharp pain of the bullet biting into his own skin. He sucks in a harsh breath through his nose, feeling the energy of it sliding from John's scar and into his arm. When the moment passes, Sherlock feels as if he's been wrung dry.

John is panting softly, each breath warm and a little damp against his skin.

They stay like that, long after John has dropped off into an anxious sleep.

\--

The intimacy is unbearable.

Out of whatever shred of decency he's held on to, Sherlock keeps his eyes averted when John changes clothes; he hovers behind the bathroom door when he uses the toilet or showers.

And yet while he sleeps, Sherlock devours him with his gaze. He cannot look away. John's expression turns soft and open in slumber and it constricts knots up and down Sherlock's spine. He lies with him as close as possible, feeling each twitch of John's sleeping form.

When he is awake and they are alone, Sherlock is John's one constant companion. John opens like a flower reaching for the sun; he absolutely blooms, expressive and vibrant. John tells him about the war; Sherlock tells John about the cases he took in the Before.

John writes them like fiction on his blog.

Women notice John in a way that makes Sherlock feel tetchy. John notices them, too, and in a way that makes Sherlock wish for a moment he were a poltergeist.

But if John views Sherlock as an unwanted voyeur, he doesn't mention it.

As spring turns lop-leggedly into summer, John breaks the routine they had fallen into. As Sherlock waits behind the door of the bathroom while John showers, he can hear the smallest of noises— deep, but quiet. It's a sound that immediately heats the inside of Sherlock's veins.

He closes his eyes, listening to the sounds of the water falling unevenly from the shower head onto the tub flooring. A slick, rhythmic sound is just barely audible beneath the sound of the shower— even softer, still, are John's panting breaths.

Sherlock swallows dryly.

John hasn't masturbated in all their time together. The thought itself seems obscene in a way that it never had before. Sex, part of some people's human nature, had always been an abstract concept. Something other people did.

When John gives a final grunt of satisfaction, Sherlock wishes he could melt through the floor.

The new habit continues into the next day, and the next. Sherlock wishes he knew what had inspired John's missing libido to return, if only to strangle it for causing him this embarrassing misery.

John doesn't mention it, and so life moves on.

One Sunday morning, John is still in bed as the grey hour approaches. Sherlock lays by his side, facing him. Letting his thoughts roll over him like the low waves at the edge of a lake; he slides in and out of familiarity and comfort. John is on his back, one hand over his head, one pressed to his stomach.

A guilt begins to climb up Sherlock's throat when John's body begins to shift and arch in his sleep, in a way that is distinctly sexual. He watches as John's palm slides sleepily beneath the blankets. His hips press upwards and Sherlock closes his eyes tight.

John exhales, face turned toward him, and Sherlock can feel it against his cheek.

"Sherlock."

His name is said with such intention that Sherlock nearly melts through the bed. His eyes snap open and John is there, looking at him through hooded lids. Sherlock feels his heart flutter against his ribcage, the world narrowing down into the look on John's face.

A look Sherlock has never seen before; it is new to him, but he instinctively recognises it as something good.

"Is this okay?" John asks in barely a whisper. Sherlock shivers and it feels as if his body flickers in and out of sight.

Sherlock can't get words out; he nods mutely and John exhales in a rush of heated delight.

"Can you..?" John let's the question trail off leadingly. It takes Sherlock's sluggish, animal braid a moment to realize what John is asking.

"I don't think so," Sherlock says. He hasn't tried. He doesn't know if he should. He clutches his hands together into fists and presses them against his stomach.

John swallows nosily. "Is this okay?" John asks again in a way that feels more pleading and intimate all at once. Sherlock reaches out for him and places his palm on the smooth strip of John's stomach where the blankets have been pushed down and his shirt has ridden up.

John looks down. "Jesus," he whispers and Sherlock wonders what the sight does to him. He can imagine.

John pushes down the edge of the blankets, far braver than Sherlock. The sight of his cock is so sudden and startling that Sherlock's hand slips right through John's belly like smoke.

John laughs boisterously and Sherlock gasps, "Sorry!" but his lips are twisting upwards in a grin. John laughs with his hand around his cock and the sight is so painfully beautiful. Sherlock repositions his palm back onto John's stomach, fingers spreading wide. When John gives his cock a slick stroke, Sherlock can feel it in his palm, up his arm, fizzling out at the end of his elbow. Sherlock sucks in a breath of air and John exhales it noisily against his jaw.

"I can feel you," Sherlock says. John groans deep and it reverberates down Sherlock's spine.

They lay like this, breathing and John sliding his right fist along his cock and Sherlock pressing his palm against his stomach— Sherlock feeling each motion in a way that John can't— it feels like a bubble in his gut, growing and ready to burst.

Sherlock feels invincible and slides his hand to cup the underside of John's cock. It's hard and silky against his palm.

"Can you feel me?" Sherlock feels himself growing desperate to touch John. The whine in his voice is embarrassingly loud. "Can— can you feel...?"

John stops stroking, looking down the line of his body where Sherlock's hand grasps him. "No," he says and Sherlock's heart plummets. "But that looks fucking fantastic."

The heat climbs up Sherlock's arm, into his chest, down to his belly and settles in his groin. John slips his hand along his cock and Sherlock mimics the motion that John can't even feel. But John's sounds are louder, now. He's arching his hips into the tight sleeve of his fist, panting and moaning in a way that makes Sherlock's eyes unfocused and bleary.

But he watches. He watches the way John's palm rolls over the head of his cock, and the way his thumb and forefinger barely meet when he wraps them around the base. He wants to combust and melt away all at the same time. He clutches his hand to John's cock and feels it.

"I can feel you," Sherlock repeats, each stroke of John's hand on himself building up inside him, like a crescendo, like the top of a carnival ride.

"God," John whispers, deep in his throat. His fist squeezes and Sherlock feels it in his groin, in his spine, at the base of his neck. John's heels dig into the bed and his hips stutter up as he comes—

And Sherlock does flicker out of existence, or he must have done. Warmth expands from his hips outward, wriggling its way into every corner of his body, flooding through every vein. His stomach turns to sickly sweet honey and he can't breathe. It's like the asphyxiation all over again, like the darkness of Hell come to drag him away. It's powerful. It's terrifying.

—and John's voice is there in the darkness, panting, calling him home. "Sherlock, God. Jesus, yeah..."

Sherlock slowly pieces himself together and when his eyes open John is hovering over him. His palm is tracing the outline of his cheek, but never touching. "Did you feel that?" John murmurs, breathless and giddy. "Hm?"

Sherlock can't articulate what had just happened to him. He feels weak; he doesn't feel as connected to the After as he had before. He reaches out to John and presses his palm against his chest. He rolls, ducking his face against the sturdy presence of John's body. John, who keeps him here. John, who makes him feel.

"S'alright," John murmurs, rolling onto his back. Sherlock follows, fitting neatly into the curve of John's body.

They stay like that, together.

\--

Sherlock does not leave John's immediate side for days afterwards. The spider-web thin tether keeping him to the world seems all the more fragile in the days following. John doesn't seem to mind, or if he does, he certainly doesn't mention it. Even when Sherlock insinuates himself pressed against John's back in the small cubicle of the men's toilet.

There is no repeat of that night, which Sherlock is almost thankful for. He had been splayed open just as he had on the autopsy table in Molly's morgue. John had reached inside him and twisted up his insides and Sherlock had been incapable of scooping them all back inside.

John's world narrows.

There's a date, dinner at a dive and John's hand under a woman's skirt in the cab on the way home. Sherlock shrivels himself so small he worries he might fold in on himself and disappear.

John leaves her at the door and doesn't go in. Sherlock can see her disappointment, but the light is gone from John's eyes; he flashes her a boyish grin, but he's already far away. Sherlock wraps his arms around his shoulders possessively. His stomach twists into knots, but he's glad John goes home alone— no, not alone.

With him.

Always.

Harriet Watson comes to the flat one evening at the height of summer. The air is too sticky and hot and John has shed his customary layered clothes for something a little cooler. The window brings in a slight breeze from the north. Sherlock gets to watch, greedy and starving, as trickles of sweat work their way down John's throat.

John's sister looks just like him, if only for a few obvious differences. She's drunk and John half carries her to the edge of his bed and shoves a glass of water under her nose.

"You don't call!" Harry bellows, nearly dumping the water over onto the dingy carpeting. "Last anyone hears from you is a bloody hospital phone call! Got your fuckin'— arm blown off—"

"Shot in the shoulder," John says tersely, waving the still attached arm. Sherlock snorts and John's eyes flicker. Harry is too far gone to notice.

"So, Mum won't shut up about you— cause you won't call. She keeps lookin' through the obituaries." Harry leans down, wobbly with drink, and sets the glass of water carefully on the floor. When she sits up again, her face is runny with tears that Sherlock wishes she would wipe away. It smears her dark makeup. The loose wisps of her fringe cling to her damp cheeks.

"What do you want me to say?" John asks, tetchy. Harriet is claustrophobic in the way that families are. Watching them reminds Sherlock of the look on Mycroft's face. He aches, quietly, in the corner. John's face is turned away from him, towards his sister instead.

Sherlock wishes he could escape the disgusting display of familial sentiment that radiates from Harriet's anger.

"We thought you were dead!" Harriet blubbers, wiping her face with her palms. Her makeup stains her hands. "Jesus, John, you could have at least—"

"I was," John says tightly.

The air is still in the room; even the breeze from the window pauses. The only sound is Harry's soft sniffles. A long minute stretches out between them. Sherlock doesn't intrude.

"You could have called," Harriet says, her voice hoarse and weak. John swallows audibly and ducks his chin against his chest.

"I could have," he concedes.

Sherlock turns his head away, surprising himself with the strength of his own vehemence.

\--

John sleeps in fits and bursts. Sherlock wonders if he has nightmares of the children he's indirectly helped murder; of the soldiers he couldn't fit back together like patchwork dolls.

("I was a soldier," John had said when Sherlock giggled uproariously at John's stern no-nonsense voice.

"You were a doctor," Sherlock had countered, rolling seamlessly to lay nearly inside John's own body.

John had run his hands down his own chest, as if it were Sherlock's. "I had bad days.")

When he stirs awake, groggy and a little feverish, he smiles at the sight of Sherlock, opaque and glowing in the light from the streets coming through the window. John reaches for him, and Sherlock tucks his cheek into the curve of John's palm. They've gotten good at simulating touch— John holds still and Sherlock fits his body against him.

And for a moment, it's as if John is touching him.

He murmurs, voice deep with sleep, "You're brilliant," and Sherlock's heart climbs up his throat and settles there, pounding away at nothing.

\--

John takes a job at the hospital and meets a woman named Sarah. They get along and John flirts and smiles his boyish smile- it's for women, maybe, because he never smiles at Sherlock like that.

John likes Sarah. Sherlock hates her.

After Sarah there's a nurse named Gwen and a pediatrician named Hanna and an OBGYN named Heather.

None of them last and none of them stay. At night, John goes home alone and Sherlock follows, floating like a cloud on a string. He lays with John in bed and says, "I don't know why you persist with those women," in a snide voice. John chuckles and Sherlock wiggles closer until he can rest his weight gently against John's sternum. "The one with the freckles wasn't awful, but the rest were."

"What else am I supposed to do?" John asks softly; Sherlock can feel the puffs of breath against his curls. He counts John's heart beats (one-two, three-four, five-six). "I can't even touch you."

Sherlock aches. "You want to touch me," he says, a statement of fact rather than a question. John makes a low noise, sounding pleased.

"Absolutely," John answers and glides his hand over the shape of Sherlock's arm.

For all that Sherlock had desperately wanted to be seen, the reality of that burden on John is nightmarish to actually watch him endure. Against all the odds, John had found him on that park bench on the first warm day of spring. If Sherlock had not looked up just then, if John had kept his eyes straight ahead— if his host had closed her book just a minute sooner—

Sherlock can feel the asphyxiation clawing at his throat and he clutches John tighter, breathing deep, deep, deep—

He cannot stay.

The realisation presses the air from his lungs and the darkness grabs greedily at the edges of his vision. He cannot stay— to subject John to much more of this for his own selfish desire is beyond cruel; it's inhuman.

Sherlock had never before considered himself very human.

He can't stay, but he can't leave.

"I need to be alone," Sherlock says as they're walking home one evening from the hospital. He grabs the arm of a stranger passing the opposite direction.

John can't call his name but the look he gives him reads clear enough. His expression twists up, thick brows furrowing over the shadows of his eyes. For the first time, the connection breaking and re-sewing itself to someone new causes a physical pain in Sherlock's chest. It's as if John's thread, the one Sherlock must hang on to to stave off the darkness of hell, is ripped from beneath his skin, leaving a raw, open wound.

He spends the rest of the evening trying in vain to regain his breath.

Sherlock goes back to being unseen.

This, too, is unbearable. He had grown so used to John's eyes on him while he slips through the flat, to John's smirking lips while Sherlock plays at deducing strangers on the tube. John's voice had always seemed to be meant for him; now, Sherlock hovers uselessly behind his new host, unheard and unseen.

"Haven't you ever been nearly hit by a truck?" Sherlock snaps, slamming his hands against the breakfast counter. The women he had hitched onto doesn't even blink. "Gotten into an accident? Slipped into a pool? Got caught in high tide?"

His host flips the page of her book and chews on her thumb nail, oblivious of Sherlock's post-mortem crisis.

And so, with John Watson as the only exception, the line between the Before and the After stays firmly in place.

Time in the After ceases to have much meaning. What felt like hours very well could have been days or weeks. It's still the height of summer when Sherlock is finally close enough to the hospital to attach himself to a nurse coming in for her shift; he errs on the side of only a few days having passed.

Perhaps it's pure luck that John Watson is in the foyer of the hospital, chatting kindly with one of the nurses. Sherlock can feel his eyes burning his skin the moment John sees him. He crosses the space between them and clutches onto John with both arms. He burrows his face in the curve of his neck and wishes he could stay just here, forever.

When they're alone in one of the exam rooms, John says, "Took you long enough," with a voice that wraps itself around Sherlock's heart like piano wire. John holds his hands up and Sherlock rest his jaw gently against his palms. His eyes flutter closed, but he can feel John's gaze peeling him apart bit by bit.

"Don't leave like that again," John says quietly. Sherlock's stomach turns to rot.

"Never," he lies.

\--

Sherlock clasps onto John from behind, burrowing his face into John's throat. He wishes he could smell the subtleties of his soap, shampoo, shaving cream. He feels the warmth of John's frame, squeezes his arms around the solid girth of John's chest and shoulders.

John's palms come up, cover his forearms. Hovering. As close to touching as he's ever come.

Sherlock slinks around to his front, gliding his palms over John's chest as he goes.

"If I could touch you…," John's voice shifts, sliding into something husky and a little dangerous. Sherlock closes his eyes, swallowing thickly. If John could touch him— if John could—

"Let me try something," Sherlock says. His voice sounds flat to his own ears. John sucks in a breath and hesitates, watching the opaque sight of Sherlock's fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Sherlock steps closer, so that they're a breath apart. John tilts his head, as if he could brush his lips along the hollow of Sherlock's jaw.

"Alright," John whispers. It sends heat deep into Sherlock's core. He feels toasty warm from the inside out.

If he has to leave John, then he will take this with him.

John lays on the bed, naked and above the sheets. His thick cock is already half-hard, and Sherlock can't fathom why. But the sight is everything. Sherlock hovers at the edge of the bed, staring and drinking in his fill. John's muscles quiver under his skin and Sherlock wants to shimmer out of existence.

When Sherlock crawls onto the bed, he does so backwards, inching towards John, peeking over one shoulder. "Trust me..?"

"Yes." John's voice holds no hesitation.

The sensation is different than having someone inadvertently walk through him. There is no belly-swoop, but there isn't an experience in the Before to describe it either. Sherlock carefully lays himself into John's body, head and shoulders aligned. He doesn't quite fit, but it feels as if his astral projection shrinks to accommodate John's physical space.

John gasps.

Sherlock can hardly draw in his own breath. He struggles for a moment, settling into this singular sensation. "You should—" Sherlock swallows tensely. "You should touch... touch..."

John understands, even if Sherlock can't get it out. When John's hand encircles his cock, Sherlock can feel it in every single corner of his body. He can't stop himself from absolutely keening.

"Shh," John whispers and it's as if John's voice is directly in his head.

When John moves his hand, Sherlock chokes on a sob. He can feel it. Just like before, whatever John is doing translates into his own body— but instead of up through his arm it's swarming inside his very core, radiating outwards.

"This is how I would touch you," John says gruffly, and twists his palm around the head of his cock. Sherlock whimpers, writhing inside of John's body.

John's own breathing turns to pants, his legs flexing against the bed. Sherlock twists, bucking upwards at the same moment John fucks up into his own fist. "Slowly. Until you couldn't help...but... fuck my fist... until you broke.."

Sherlock suddenly regrets this more than anything. He claws at the sheets, at John's arms, at his own flesh. He groans deep as John's palm glides more quickly over his cock, filling the room with obscene wet sounds.

John's legs spread and so do Sherlocks. The motion feels wicked and Sherlock shudders from the inside out. John's thumb swipes over the slit of his cock and Sherlock can feel the ridges of his thumb print every fucking where.

John ejaculates and the world becomes white light and white noise.

It feels like hours until the world rights itself again. John returns to the bed after cleaning the mess on his belly and Sherlock curls, small as possible, into the empty space between John and the wall.

"Okay?" John murmurs, nudging one knuckle against the jaw he can't really touch. Sherlock ducks his chin and rests it along the curve of John's hand.

"Brilliant," he whispers.

\--

John has fallen in love with someone who is not real. Sherlock swallows bile back down his throat, watching John's slow breathing as he sleeps. His eyes flicker behind closed lids and Sherlock rests his palm lightly against John's chest. The steady rise and fall is a comfort that is long overdue.

He should have known nothing good was going to come from this. Sherlock clenches his jaw, and Mycroft in his head is so clear and precise: "I told you not to get involved."

Sherlock rests his head gently on John's chest, draping himself over his body. He positions his ear just over John's heart. It whispers to him in drum beats.

He lays like that, completely still, until the sun comes up and John stirs. In cowardice, Sherlock retreats from his supine position against John's body; when John's eyes open, they are lying side by side with a cold spot of sheets between them.

That morning, John takes the tube to work. Sherlock stands shoulder to shoulder with John in the underground station. The train approaching creates an echo of sound that grows and grows until it overtakes them. The echo rattles Sherlock's bones and he presses himself close to John's side.

The sleepy passengers board. John steps from the platform and onto the crowded train car. There are no seats; Sherlock watches him grasp onto one of the stability poles. His back is turned. Sherlock's heart sinks down into his gut. Two high chimes signal the closing doors.

John's head twists on his shoulders and Sherlock bows his head; he means not to look, but he can feel John's gaze on him like fire. He looks up and John's expression is a knife twisting in his guts: the confusion, the slow dawning of realization. Sherlock can see the exact moment John realizes what's happening.

The train rattles forward and Sherlock watches as John reaches above the door for the emergency pull.

The train is moving, and so the doors don't open.

When the last car slips into the tunnel, Sherlock can feel his attachment to John rip free.

\--

It hurts.

Sherlock can't gather enough breath to scream, but it hurts. Darkness clambers at the edges of his vision, long spider edges swallowing him whole. Each shaky inhale pushes bile into his lungs and it burns inside him. He can feel himself collapsing from the inside out.

There is no sound beyond the After. His rattling noises and pathetic gargles can't penetrate the thick air around him. There are no paramedics now that he is months dead. There is no Molly to grasp on to. He'd made his choice.

Whatever waits for him beyond the After is preferable to what waits for him beyond John.

Perhaps he wallows in this unending pain for moments, or years, or millennia. He has no way of knowing. His body twists and contorts in agony; the darkness grows thicker, blacker. Sherlock manages to gasp out a sob, a plea, begging for this just to end.

And then, as quickly as it had begun—it does. End.

Sherlock sucks in a breath and the air flows directly into his lungs, expanding them as the air stretches his diaphragm. His throat palpates as he swallows. He can feel the weight of his heart. It beats quickly in his chest, spreading out the physical feeling of anxiety to every one of his limbs.

His eyes open and the light is so blinding that he feels a bellow of pain work its way out of his throat. It takes him a moment to work his eyes open again, squinting into the warm early morning sunlight. It spills through his curtains, collecting dust that floats through the air. His fingers curl, slowly, dragging against the sheets. His body is stiff, but he manages to roll heavily to one side.

His bedroom comes into shape around him. He blinks, trying to clear the bleariness from his eyes.

The phone on his bedside table buzzes, the plastic rattling loudly over the wood. It jitters off the edge and onto the floor, clattering in a way that seems as loud as thunder. Sherlock feels as if he's climbing through swamp mud when he tries to reach over the side of his bed for the phone.

Having tangible control over an object is enough to make him almost weep in joy. His fingers feel too large and clumsy as he struggles to unlock the device.

7:32 AM  
Jan 29 2010

It takes a moment for Sherlock to struggle into a sitting position. His phone rests in the cup of his hands; he can't stop staring, even after the backlight fades off and the phone goes black. His mouth feels dry. The sound of his heart pounding roars in his ears, the blood rushing and leaving him feeling slightly dizzy.

He tries to speak but his voice is croaky and weak from disuse.

He is in the Before.

Sherlock drags his palms over his own arms, legs, chest, belly. He scrubs his fingers through his hair, grasping and tugging at the strands. One finger probes at his chest through the thin fabric of his tee shirt, searching for evidence of his autopsy. It’s as if none of it had happened.

John.

The man's name comes like a whisper, and for a brief moment Sherlock is unfamiliar with its origins. When he sucks in a rattling breath, Sherlock can feel where his tether to John had split him down the middle.

Well, there was only one thing to do.

\--

A quick run through a search engine yields nothing interesting beyond John’s blog. It’s a few entries down. It’s a pitiful website without only two entries in it so far. John, far from a millennial, has kept any particularly identifying information off of it. No matter Sherlock remembers the route to the bedsit, and so he goes.

The world outside is sharp and cold. He has almost forgotten the late winter bite of the London air. He huddles inside his greatcoat and paces outside the row of buildings. They’re shaped into an L with a wrought iron fence surrounding them, a pitiful courtyard tucked into the junction of the buildings. Sherlock considers his options on approaching John Watson, who may not know him, who could not know him— who, impossibly, should not even exist in this world.

Hello, you don’t know me yet but I think we’re supposed to meet. We mucked it up the first time. Let’s try again.

Silly as it is, Sherlock feels in his gut John would not deny him for even a single moment.

11:24 AM. Sherlock spots John Watson coming from one of the outer doors. His limp is awful and he leans heavily on his cane. Sherlock wants to snatch it, just to show him he could stand on his own. Instead, he tucks himself around the corner of the sidewalk and waits. John’s therapist is only a short walk.

When John hobbles by, Sherlock almost misses his chance to call out to him— the breeze shifts and Sherlock catches the smell of his soap, his shampoo, his laundry detergent. It cumulates into something distinctly John and Sherlock shudders, remembering how he had tucked himself against John’s body time and time again, wanting to be able to experience that simple, human pleasure. Seeing John now, like this, when they are both part of the Before renders Sherlock almost incapable of speech or movement or thought.

It’s real.

He’s real.

“John Wah— Watson. John Watson.” His voice cracks humiliatingly on the first try. John pauses, a moment from stepping off the curb. He turns to look, his expression damn near exhausted, the haunted look in his eyes still there. As if Sherlock had not chased it away. As if he hadn’t touched him at all.

“Sorry?” John says softly. “Do I know you?”

Sherlock’s mouth feels dry and he tries not to swallow his tongue. “Yes,” he says softly. “You will.” He thrusts his hand forward into the space between them, closing the distance. His skin tingles before John even reacts. But he does react. John reaches out to shake his hand, almost on autopilot. John’s grip his firm and his palm his warm; Sherlock is touching him and all the breath sweeps from his lungs in a single, pitiful wheeze.

The ground is solid beneath his feet, though Sherlock still feels as if he could just melt right through it.

John’s brows raise, his chin lifting minutely. It’s such a small, subtle change. But Sherlock watches John’s left hand slowly unclench and his weight shift off the cane.

“I’m meant to die tomorrow,” Sherlock says. John’s eyes focus with a burning heat. The look is familiar to Sherlock, who had experienced it before in the After. He’s still holding John’s hand. “Would you like to stop it?”

 


End file.
